CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Rhonda and Frank drove up just as Giorgio and Vivian were coming out of the house.

"He's not in a bathrobe." Frank was astounded to see the boss fully dressed in a suit and tie. "And he's shaven. Rhonda, you see that?"

"I see it. I'm not blind, Frank."

"And that girl is with him."

"Her name is Vivian. I see that too."

"What you make of it?" Frank parked the car in the circular driveway, still floored by his boss.

"I don't know what to make of it. All I know is that she can handle him. She's exactly what he needs. Whether he believes it is a different conversation. But she's what he needs." She and Frank got out of their car.

They met up with Giorgio and Vivian at the front passenger door of Giorgio's Mercedes.

"No bathrobe, Jonni?" Rhonda was smiling as they walked up.

Giorgio didn't answer her. She was used to that. "Where are you going?"

He paused as if he was still amazed himself. "To the office," he said.

When he said those words, Rhonda's mouth nearly gapped open. She and Frank even glanced at each other. Rhonda instinctively knew that Vivian would be good for Jonni. But already ? After just one night in his house? Even she was surprised. "Are you sure you're ready for that?"

He wasn't sure. Even Frank could see that. But he also knew that when his boss made a decision, he did not change his mind. "Yes," Giorgio said to Rhonda.

"I need to get some paperwork out of your home office. I'll lock up and meet you over there."

"Sounds good," said Giorgio as he opened the front passenger door for Vivian.

"Would you like for me to drive you, sir?" Frank wasn't his driver, but he was his bodyguard.

But Giorgio nixed that idea. He wanted time alone with Vivian on that half-hour drive to Manhattan. "No, I'll drive myself. You ride with your wife. I'll see you at the office."

"Yes, sir," Frank said as Giorgio opened the passenger side door of his car, Vivian got in, and then he closed the door, walked around to the driver side, and got in himself. Frank and Rhonda watched as the pair rode away.

Frank was still astounded. "What is it about that girl that's got him so . . ."

Rhonda looked at him. "So what?"

"So not himself?"

"She challenges him. She doesn't take his bullcrap. I realized it when I heard them going at each other in his office. The way she held her own, I'd never seen anybody be that way with Jonni. And the fact that he was helping her after that when anybody else would have be glad for her misfortunes, convinced me that yep, he saw it too." She nodded her head. "He saw it too," she said again.

"Are you trying to tell me you see more than just rolls in the hay for her with him?"

"Far more," said Rhonda. "At least that's my prayer."

Then she remembered that she had to get to Manhattan. That she was on Giorgio's clock and he was not above taking time. She hurried into the house.